“We produce technologic machinery for our customers”

Recently we have visited to the factory of Has Group in Corlu and have been informed about the company and its activities by Tamer Hasbay, chairman of the board.

On general organization of the Group and its activities
By the year 2102 we have been operating in the market as Lafer Textile Machine company, a partnership with Italian partners. We as Turkish shareholders, we bought the shares of Italian’s and founded our company Has Group in 2010. Has Group started to produce machines by combining design, project, sales and after sales services under its umbrella aiming to become a technology based manufacturer. Our team and staff have been organized with an objective to be known as a technology company. Lately, we have been registered as the 250th R&D center in Turkey supported and approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
In this direction, we applied and accepted to be a member of VDMA, the Federation of Textile Machinery Producers in Germany. We established Has Group Academy that aims to train and educate about 10 young graduates for their managerial positions in our company in the future. Their education in their field of expertise will take four years to finish.

On the relations with Lafer company
We have been thinking about redesigning our activities for becoming more professional in the business since 2005. We were employing professional advisors and board members since then. Lafer earned great profits in its activities in Turkey from 1995 to 2005. We have also learned a lot about the markets and businesses both in the country and abroad. We as Has Group wanted to be not only a local company but also a firm that is able to sell its machinery in export markets as well. Thus, we disengaged with Italians.
Presently we hit almost our targets. Our aim is to reach exports share from % 52 to % 60 at the end of the year.

On the company’s export model and strategy in foreign countries
We assigned several countries to our representatives in America, Europe, Middle East, Turkey, Central Asia and Far East. Our representatives managed by regional sales manager, are active to find customers, provide trainings, support for maintenance and educations of labor in the companies that uses our machinery. Similar activities have been carried out in Bangladesh, in Brazil and in South Africa.

On R&D and P&D activities
Research activities must be grouped into two: Research&Development, and Product&Development. We basically are after P&D. We try to find new ways and solutions for better machinery that will consume less energy, less water, less steam, less labor while producing more product. Updating our machinery to adapt them more to the demand of customers depending on the use of different fibers, yarns etc. In my opinion, industry should be after more production, more sales and more profits, so they have to develop products and processes for this aim. This is a social responsibility for them, as well.

On new textiles and new projects and investments
We established a separate department to deal with technical textiles and carpets in our organization. We have got a good way in developing technologies for carpet and tarpaulin covering. We have serious projects in technical textile field.

On fairs and fair activities in ITM2016
We participated all editions of ITM fairs. In my opinion, ITM has taken the place of ITMA that is held in several locations in Europe. ITM is more international than the other. We exhibited our R&D studies and promoted the machinery that we plan to produce in the future. We focused on our latest product that we developed with Scheider that can by managed online with a simple iPhone from any part of the world. It can be started, tested and its performance be gauged and measured from far away points. A brushing machine and a rope unwinding and cutting equipment, a filtering solution for chimneys has been showed in the fair.We use every possible tools and media to promote ourselves and our products in several events including seminars, conferences and sponsorships. Lately we sponsored a seminar organized by IAV held in Kahramanmaras.

On the activities and sales of Has Group after the separation from Lafer
About 210 machinery that we have produced by now are in the operation both in Turkey and in the world. 200 of them in Turkey, and the rest in abroad are active today. During a period of 20 years from 1996 to 2016, that is the year that we started our products in our facilities following the separation we have produced 1500 finishing machinery, thousand of them are working in Turkey. Breakdown of our sales and machinery used in several countries are being updated in our web site continuously.